Romania's Roma

Where is Europe’s Roma policy?

THE Roma community is beeing chased from countries across Europe. Romania and France have sent Roma back and forth since 2007, when Romania joined the European Union, but it seems that the French are now intending to pursue a harder line towards the Roma from Romania in their country.

On September 12th, Manuel Valls, France’s interior minister, and Bernard Cazeneuve, the minister for European Affairs, travelled to Romania to discuss Roma integration with the country’s president and prime minister. The visit was expected to bring some concrete proposals on how to improve the integration of the estimated 400,000 Roma living in France (a large part of whom are from Romania). Yet they only struck a framework agreement that allows some 80 Roma families who wish to return to Romania to receive “financial support for economic reinsertion” by the French authorities.

Mr Valls stressed that the countries’ joint efforts should be focused on finding a solution for the Roma people to settle in their country of origin. He has defended the recent police raids to break up Roma camps in France on health grounds. "France has a policy of evacuating illegal camps and of escorting them [the Roma immigrants] to the border," Mr Valls added.

Traian Băsescu, the Romanian president, and Victor Ponta, the prime minister, said they are willing to co-operate with France in order to integrate the Roma community into Romanian society. Yet Mr Băsescu criticised Mr Valls for a remark he made a day ahead of his visit when he said that “France cannot accommodate all the misery in Europe." Mr Băsescu stated that Romania is not chasing its Roma citizens out of the country and added that Romania could send extra police to France, if needed, to dismantle criminal Roma networks. Mr Ponta said the real solution to the problem is education and jobs: children from Roma communities need to attend school regularly and Roma need to find stable jobs in Romania.

Despite European integration strategies, EU funds and political and diplomatic efforts, Europe has so far been unable to integrate the Roma people. Most efforts were focused on dismantling Roma criminal groups whose activities are widely reported in the media. Yet beyond this stereotyped image of Roma immigrants, many Europeans know very little about Roma traditions and cultural heritage and the history of Roma persecution. Offering Roma citizens €300 ($390) and putting them on a plane back to Romania, as the French authorities did, is not a solution, but only a paid vacation. A large category of Roma citizens emigrated to western Europe because they wanted to work and offer their children a better life then the one they had in Romania.

The European Commission’s Roma integration strategy points out four crucial areas such as access to education, employment, health care and housing. Only a limited number of Roma children complete primary school and many of them are in special education and segregated schools. Due to their poor living standards and limited access to quality health care, Roma people live on average ten years less then other European citizens.

When it comes to employment, full Roma integration in the labour market could bring economic benefits estimated to be around €500m annually for some countries, such as Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia or the Czech Republic, according to World Bank research. Their integration would improve productivity, reduce government payments for social assistance and increase tax revenue.

Up to €26.5 billion of EU funding is currently available for member states for social inclusion projects for the Roma. Yet countries like Romania (which has the highest number of Roma in Europe, more than 1.5m) are having problems accessing these funds. In many cases, the EU is financing only up to 80% of a project and the government needs to pony up the rest.

Gelu Duminica, the head of the “Impreuna” Agency for Community Development, a foundation that supports the integration and development of the Roma community, says five of their programmes that are financed through the EU are currently suspended because the Romanian government didn’t make payments: “The situation is desperate. Some of our staff had to make personal bank loans so we could continue to finance these programmes. If the government doesn’t make the payments by February next year, we will lose all the money and shut down the foundation.” Mr Duminica believes corruption and bureaucracy are the main causes for this delay. If the government does not wake up to the need to support Roma integration much more actively and to give the Roma a voice before elaborating integration strategies, it will continue to be haunted by Romania’s biggest societal problem for the foreseeable future.

That's good, because nobody is persecuting them. It's actually the opposite. The EU and governments of both France and Romania are competing who can give them more funds and benefits. I am from Hungary. NOBODY gave me a job, nobody supported my education, nobody built houses for me. Schools are free. If you're poor, even your books and lunch are free. Roma kids had the exact same opportunity as I had. I made use of it. They didn't. It's their fault. Entirely. I'm not responsible for their situation. Yet, my government still takes my money I worked for and gives it to them. For free. They consume it. Nothing happens. Any more questions why Eastern societies have zero sympathy for them?

Wrong. Roma people are doing EXACTLY the same in countries where there are opportunities, like France or Canada. Why were they sent back from France? Why are they being sent back from Canada? Because of their own unwillingness to work and integrate. It's easy to compose fairy tales from Brussels, but just ask ANY Romanian/Hungarian/Czech/Slovak person who lived their whole lives with them. Any of them. They will say the same: Roma don't want to integrate.

1. Why were all government and EU help completely unsuccessful?
2. Why couldn't the Roma find service jobs in France like other immigrants could?
3. Why can't Roma children attend schools in Romania and find stable jobs?
4. Why do criminal networks emerge everywhere where they show up?
5. Why is it always everyone else's fault that they can't adopt the settled European way of life?
5. How many more evidences liberals need to conclude that the slightest will towards integration and law-obeying life-style is missing from Roma communities?

In Denmark we have a smallish group of gypsies, 200 - 400 from the former Yugoslavia - living in the city of Elisnore (Setting of Shakespear's Hamlet, by the way). They came in the early 1970'ties,
as migrant workers.

Over the years since then, they have been almost impossible to integrate. Their children do attend school as the wind blows. The city council tried to withhold their social benefits, to improve the turn up at school - that helped... - for a while.

But some Danish 'do-gooders' went to The Court of Human Rights and won the case. It was against the human rights, to withhold the social benefits.

Immediately after the verdict, all was back to the same old problem.

With those of the gypsies that owns a company - often a cleaning company - there are huge problems with tax and VAT fraud. Fraud with car registration and tax, and so on and so. The list of offences are almost endless.

What I don't understand - or accept is: How can you have been in Europe for 800-1.000 year's and not have blended in?

My answer is: Because your not willing...

***

And finally. I once saw a documentary about gypsies in Eastern Europe. In a sequence, in a gypsy camp, the reporter ask a clan leader what is going on up the hill in the camp - there was music and a lot of commotion. "Oohh: That is a wedding for my daughter.
I sold her for 800 euro's". Reporter: "How old is she?" Clan leader: "14".

Romania doesn't chase Gypsies unlike France, as Romanian born Gypsies are Romanian citizens with full rights. Gypsies leave Romania on their own will, as other 2.5 million Romanians did for purely economic reasons. The only difference is that Romanians work and integrate in the host society, Gypsies from Romania don't. They refuse to integrate in Romania or elsewhere. For a successful integration both parties must cooperate. In case of Gypsies, they refuse to integrate in the Romanian "gadjo" society as they consider impure the outside world. Maybe a lecture of the Gypsy "purity traditions" will make you understand why Gypsies will be never integrated in Romania or elsewhere.
The claim that Romania chases Gypsies is an abject lie, to make acceptable the fascist type deportations undertaken by France.

The article says “A large category of Roma citizens emigrated to Western Europe because they wanted to work and offer their children a better life then the one they had in Romania.” But don't you think that, after centuries of presence in Europe, if the Roma community really wanted to work and to integrate they would have already managed to do so? According to what many Romanian friends have told me, the members of the Roma community do not want to work, they just want to continue doing what they're already doing -- and perhaps in countries richer than Romania, hence their moving to other European countries. Additionally, some of them refuse to send their kids to school. Amid all this, they are very good at playing the part of the poor victimized people that nobody wants to accept. The truth is, those members of the Roma community that wanted to integrate have already done so long ago, and for most Roma nowadays the need for integration is just a façade, behind which they continue doing what they have always been doing.

This is a far more complex issue than it gets credit for, I moved to Europe from Canada in 2005 with no preconceptions of Roma, and when made aware of them simply thought they were a quaint throwback to the old europe. That said after extensively travelling and living in several countries (Ireland, Germany, Spain and the uk) i've seen Roma people acting almost exclusively in a anti-social manner: organised, aggressive begging, sometimes using children or in one memorable instance fake children (a toy doll), to outright theft. There was no sense that there presence in these countries was part of an ambition to start anew and become citizens, it seems that it was simply transient buisness, and advantageous social welfare that had attracted them. I'm a moderate leftist and very much of an open borders persuasion, but Roma in my experience discredit the social state and open boarders, it's a dangerous situation.

My 82 year old parents in in South Somerset UK registered an objection to an illegal gypsy encampment - as part of a public planning process. At 2 am their windows were shot out with a high velocity catapult. a neighbour identified the person responsble as a gypsy. The police did not take a witness statement because it was "too dark". My son's foot was cut on the broken glass. The only other person who dared complain had their windows shot out too. Another person who complained about gypsy noise had their car vandalized in a separate incident. Another person who complained about something else had their barn torched. Another person who was threatened by a gypsy was told by the police that it was safer not to complain. The police discourage complaints and do not investigate. I have no issue with law abiding people of any nationality or ethnicity. In the UK no politician or law enforcement agency seems to dare or care that some members of the Roma Gypsy community are terrorizing the local population.

I'm sorry, but no. Nations throughout Europe have sought to integrate the Roma for centuries. No one wants a subgroup of self-marginalized parasites living on the fringes of society and preying upon everyone else. Blaming the nations and peoples of Europe for the Roma people's collective choice to exclude themselves and live as predator/scavengers is simply not consistent with historical fact.

People don't want the Roma around not because they are different, but because they are dysfunctional and destructive. As long as the Roma continue to behave in this way, their situation will not change.

Darling rose tinted glasses, it takes two to dance tango. As long as Gypsies will refuse to cooperate, the Romanian government won't be able to do much for them.
As for Romanian leaders, can you point me instances when the they showed disdain towards human dignity? Give me facts/instances, dates and locations, not bull-bla-bla-bla...
And a question for you: what are the Gypsy values that are worth preserving? Again, name them clearly, not bull-bla-bal-bla

This article is a rehash of an article written bout 4 months ago and of a previous one from 2011. I can predict that by early 2012 we are going to have a release 4 of the same article (with a slightly different title). It reflects a real lack of understanding of the issue and it is written with a superficial political correctness that appears to be leaned in CNN, Fox or other North American media outlets. It is also part of the French bashing, a favorite sport in the British media. From this point of view The Economist is not very far from the standards of The Sun.
Let’s stick to facts and not display empty political correctness and ideologies.
Stealing, stabbing, raping are criminal behaviors irrespective if you are in Australia, US, UK, Botswana, Iran, North Korea or Cuba. When the full force of the law will be indiscriminately be applied to the Gypsies, there is a chance that the path to integration will start. In US the Gypsies will not get away with what they are used to do in Europe (be it Romania, France or UK). The so called integration works in US for 2 reasons: there are no social benefits to milk and the law is very harsh and it is applied.
Most Gypsies had to have jobs during communism (it was illegal not to). Their level of criminality was much lower than in the new (democratic) Eastern European societies. Children went to school, housing was guaranteed, but the Gypsies brought horses in the blocks of flats and ruined the flats and determined the neighbours to move away. (Today they are applying the same tactics in the very good residential areas to determine the owners to sell their properties for peanuts).
Some Gypsies communities were organized into cooperatives and manage to get some work (still on the margin of the law). But real integration never happened because one can lead a horse to the water but can not make it drink.
A comparison between the Australian aborigines and the European Gypsies has some merits. Both communities have inabilities to adapt to the 21 century (more pronounced for the Aborigines due to historical reasons). Both exhibit a victim mentality that allows them to do nothing to improve their lives and pretend that it is all due to circumstances outside their control.
However, the level of criminality of the Aborigines is much lower (possibly also due to the more strict law enforcement in Australia than in Europe).
The Stolen Generation project was a success, in spite of the trauma it generated. Today the most outspoken Aborigines opponents of it do not realise that this was the only vehicle through which they succeeded in life and now have a career and a public voice.
If the communists would have applied a similar approach in Eastern Europe 50 years ago, the Gypsy communities would have today genuine leaders to represent them. Unfortunately the most vocal of the Gypsy that today are crying wolf and pretend to be discriminated are the so-called Gypsy leaders that are milking the system using the state and European subsidies for their own interests.
This solution is still available, any EU citizen that seriously neglects its children risks of having them being removed from the family. This is nearly never applied to Gypsies because of the public outcry that will produce in the so-called human right group and NGO. In fact all there are only doing disservice to the Gypsy cause because it perpetuates the abuse of the children.
Sadly TE became a sycophantic outlet of the above pressure groups.

"A large category of Roma citizens emigrated to western Europe because they wanted to work"
that's probably false (and/or a lie)
"and offer their children a better life then the one they had in Romania."
that's probably true. question is, how did they want their children to have a better life? through honest work?
they didn't succeed in that regard, that's for sure.

The radical right-wing party of Hungary also detected the same problem. You know what their solution was? Taking the little Roma kids away from their families who only teach them how to steal and put them into boarding schools with Roma teachers where they learn some craft profession.
Reaction: the complete left-wing, liberal agenda, including parties, NGOs, civil organizations, human rights groups, Amnesty International started screaming for weeks, went to Brussels, Strasbourg, accused them for supporting segreation, and oppression of human rights. Plan was immediately dismissed, situation keeps getting worse. That's it. Kids won't go to school. If they do, they don't learn anything, keep dropping grades, and terrorize other kids, take away their lunch etc... If the teacher uses some extra measures, the giant Roma family show up the next day to terrorize, even physically insult the teacher. (ask ANY teacher who teaches in such rural schools, they will tell you stories.)
They won't go to school. If you force them, "human rights" groups start screaming, and eventually nothing happens.

Then why did the Roma people chose to settle in Romania and the neighboring countries? Coming all the way from India as they did, they could have chosen to stop anywhere. Furthermore, the Roma persons that move out of Romania and go to France, Spain, etc. aren't any better at integrating than the ones that stay behind. I have been to Romania and I can tell you that there is no mistreating of the Roma, there is simply a complete unwillingness from the Roma people to do any sort of work and to send their kids to school.

Dear readers, I am 23 years old woman living in Romania. I was born and raised here. I lived in the countryside for 18 years and after that I moved to Cluj-Napoca, studied Japanese and got a great job. I live among Roma people every day. I hate them, I pitty them, I fear them. The answer of the problem cannot be found if the question of the problem is not correctly stipulated. Here, in Romania, the Roma people are receiving “social help” – wich means a monthly salary just for beeing Roma. They are receiving shelter and food. They have special, free places in education. They have special, free oportunity to study to Babes Bolyai University if they want to. And now the real question reveals itself: Do they want to accept this society as badly as this society want to accept them? The real answer is NO! We have provided for them in the last 20 years an not even brothers are providing for each other. Like parents we’ve asked them to behave, sometimes nice sometimes not as nice. But they live in a paradigm, in an universe where everything has to be easy – for example: work is hard-stealing is easy. Studying is hard-stealing is easy. Beeing decent and moral is hard-not caring about the society developing next to you is easy. The grown up are educating their children to hate us and consider the values of this society wrong, they are teaching their children that education is worthless and that if you can do something to cheat the sistem you should do it. I am not speaking from what I’ve heard, I’m speaking from what I’ve seen, as I live among them. It is not about the fact that we do not want to accept them, as I know, beeing in the middle of this shitstom, we have tried. And we’ve lost this fight.

"A large category of Roma citizens emigrated to western Europe because they wanted to work and offer their children a better life then the one they had in Romania."
Has TE made any studies that support this assertion? Is there any evdience that once in Western Europe do anything else than begging and engage in criminal activities?

Very few issues in the world build so much consensus among the people than the Roma question. The overwhelming majority of the educated population is fully convinced that the Roma lacks the slightest willingness to integrate and adopt a European, law-obeying life-style. Yet, if any politician points out this obvious fact, loud screaming begins on various levels. This shows the most how our countries are governed by a politically correct, ultraliberal, extremely powerful and influential minority that is completely out of touch with the reality. All major newspapers belong to this destructive oligarchy. Have you seen ANY prestigious news media telling the truth about the Roma what everyone knows? I only read fairy tales.

ROMA cousins in India are called Gujjar Tribes--the Himalayas Gypsy. They are pathological criminal tribes in India. 80-90% of all crime in New Delhi area(Noida,Faridabad, Gurgaon) are because of the Gujjar Tribes settlements. These tribes are settled between delhi and Lahore, Pakistan. No one likes them, for they avoid education, communicate integration and live by themselves and conduct crime. Some became extremely wealthy by selling lands in delhi area--land they didn't buy but forced occupied since 100-200 year ago and now they have $10-100+ million. but still they cannot stop criminal activities in delhi-rajasthan areas. they are either Hindus or Muslims by religion. so do not brand them as "from India", for they are exclusively lone rangers. their cousins are also there in Iraq and other middle eastern countries. They are not born to "settle down" in any country or region--but born vagabonds...